Pork Rinds substitute

Best substitute

Almond flour (for breading and binding)

Use the same amount by volume, not by weight as the pork rinds you are replacing

Best for keto fried chicken

Taste and texture differ

It depends which job you need them to do. If you are crushing them to use as a zero-carb breading or binder, almond flour is the best swap at 1:1 by volume, or finely grated Parmesan for a harder, saltier crust, or a 50/50 mix of the two for the best of both. If carbs are not the point, plain panko is easier to work with than any of them. If you wanted them as a crunchy snack or a topping, there is no real substitute for the shattering texture, and your closest options are pork cracklings or baked cheese crisps.

Other pork rinds substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Finely grated Parmesan (or a 50/50 Parmesan and almond flour mix)
Different taste
Use the same amount by volume
Parmesan crisps into a genuinely hard, shattery crust, which is the closest thing to what crushed rinds give you, and it brings the salty savory hit too.
What changes
On its own it can go greasy and can weld to the pan. Mixed half and half with almond flour it is the single best replacement for crushed pork rinds in breading.
Best for
keto breaded chicken and fish, zucchini fries and vegetable coatings, casserole and gratin toppings, keto meatballs
Use the dry, sandy shelf-stable kind or grate it very fine yourself. Do not add extra salt, Parmesan is already salty. Bake on parchment or a rack, never straight on bare metal.
3Pork cracklings or chicharrones with fat attached
Different texture
Use the same amount by volume, crushed
Very nearly the same product from the same animal, but denser.
What changes
Cracklings keep a layer of fat and sometimes meat attached, so they are chewy-crunchy rather than airy and they taste much more strongly of pork. British pork scratchings are similar: harder, saltier and heavier.
Best for
snacking, topping soups, salads and tacos, breading where you want real pork flavor, cornbread and greens
Because they hold fat, they can turn a breading greasy. Blot them, and crush them coarser than you think, they do not shatter to powder the way puffed rinds do.
4Panko or plain dried breadcrumbs
Different taste
Use the same amount by volume
If the low-carb angle is not why you were using rinds, panko is simply better behaved: it browns evenly, holds a coating reliably and does not go soft in a sauce as fast.
What changes
It is not gluten-free or keto, and it tastes toasty and neutral rather than savory and porky.
Best for
breaded cutlets and schnitzel, meatballs and meatloaf, casserole toppings, crab cakes
Panko absorbs far more liquid than pork rinds do. In a meatball or meatloaf mix, crushed rinds barely soak anything up, so if you switch to panko you may need a splash more milk to keep the mix from tightening.
5Baked cheese crisps (Parmesan or cheddar crisps)
Different taste
Use the same amount by volume
The best answer for the snack and topping intent.
What changes
They shatter, they are salty, they are zero-carb, and they scoop dip. The flavor is unmistakably cheese rather than pork, and they soften in humidity faster than rinds do.
Best for
snacking, scooping dips and guacamole, salad and soup toppers, nacho-style plates
Crushed, they also work as breading, but they brown very quickly and can go bitter. Keep the oven at or below 375 F.
6Crushed sunflower seeds or ground flaxseed (for binding only)
Taste and texture differ
Use ¾ cup for every 1 cup crushed pork rinds
A functional, unglamorous binder for people avoiding both carbs and dairy and nuts.
What changes
It holds a meatball together but adds a distinctly earthy, slightly bitter taste and a dense, damp texture. Nobody will mistake it for a crisp coating.
Best for
meatballs and meatloaf, nut-free low-carb binding, burger binder
Use less than the rinds called for, because ground seeds and especially flax absorb a lot of moisture and will make the mix dry and crumbly. This is a binder, not a breading.

What is Pork Rinds?

Pork Rinds is the English-language name for puffed pork skin, pieces of pig skin cooked, dried and then puffed in hot fat until light, brittle and crisp, with essentially no carbohydrate, which is why low-carb cooks crush them and use them wherever a recipe wanted breadcrumbs.

Cooking tips

Be clear about the job. Pork rinds do one of two very different things: they are salty puffed crunch you eat or sprinkle, or they are a completely dry, zero-carb powder that stands in for breadcrumbs. A substitute that works for one usually fails at the other, so pick based on which you needed.
Crush them in a zip-top bag with a rolling pin, not in a food processor. A processor turns them to fine dust in two seconds, and dust makes a pasty coating. You want the texture of coarse cornmeal with a few bigger flakes in it.
A 2 to 2.5 ounce bag of pork rinds crushes down to roughly 1 to 1.25 cups of crumbs, which is why volume, never weight, is the right way to measure any substitution. A cup of crushed rinds weighs a fraction of what a cup of breadcrumbs weighs.
They are already heavily salted. When you swap in almond flour, breadcrumbs or crushed seeds, add about 1/2 teaspoon of salt per cup or the coating will taste strangely flat. Going the other direction, if a recipe was written for breadcrumbs and you are using rinds, cut the recipe's salt.
Unlike breadcrumbs, crushed rinds absorb almost no liquid. That matters in meatloaf and meatballs, where the crumb is supposed to soak up milk and keep things tender. If you use rinds there, use a little less milk; if you swap rinds out for panko, add a little more.
Crushed rinds go limp fast in anything wet. Put them on a casserole in the last 10 minutes, not at the start, and sprinkle them on soup at the table.

Frequently asked questions

Can I just leave them out?

In meatballs or meatloaf, yes, with a consequence: the binder is what keeps the mix tender and stops it shrinking into rubber, so a batch made with no binder at all will be denser and springier. If you skip it, handle the meat as little as possible and add an extra egg yolk. In a breading, no, there is nothing to leave out, you either coat the food or you pan-sear it plain, which is a perfectly good dinner but a different one.

How many pork rinds equal a cup of breadcrumbs?

About one 2 to 2.5 ounce bag, crushed, gives you roughly a cup of crumbs. Substitute cup for cup by volume with breadcrumbs or almond flour. Do not try to match weights, a cup of panko weighs several times more than a cup of crushed rinds and you will end up with far too much.

Are pork rinds, chicharrones, cracklings and pork scratchings the same thing?

They overlap. Pork rinds are skin only, dried then puffed, so they are airy and light. Chicharrones, or chicharon in the Philippines, is the same idea and can mean either puffed skin or fried skin with fat and sometimes meat still attached, depending on the country. Cracklings keep fat attached and are dense and chewy-crisp. British pork scratchings are hard, thick and very salty. For breading, the puffed skin-only kind is what you want, because the fatty versions make a greasy coating. If you came here because a Filipino recipe calls for chicharon rather than because you are cooking low-carb, the chicharon guide covers those uses, including crushing it into kare-kare to thicken the sauce.

Does breading made from pork rinds taste like pork?

Mildly, and less than people expect. Crushed and baked or fried, it reads mostly as savory and salty rather than distinctly porky. On fried chicken or pork chops it disappears entirely. On a delicate white fish it is noticeable, and there a Parmesan and almond flour mix is a better choice.

Are pork rinds keto and are the substitutes keto too?

Pork rinds have essentially zero carbohydrate, which is why they are so widely used in low-carb cooking. Almond flour, Parmesan, cheese crisps and ground sunflower seeds or flax are all low enough in carbs to work in that context. Panko and regular breadcrumbs are not. Check the label on flavored rinds, some barbecue and seasoned varieties carry added sugar.

Related substitutes

More meat & protein substitutes

Pork Rinds substitute

Other pork rinds substitutes

2Finely grated Parmesan (or a 50/50 Parmesan and almond flour mix)

3Pork cracklings or chicharrones with fat attached

4Panko or plain dried breadcrumbs

5Baked cheese crisps (Parmesan or cheddar crisps)

6Crushed sunflower seeds or ground flaxseed (for binding only)